Grant received, grant given

The Fund for Investigative Journalism recently awarded a $5,000 grant to HCN Contributing Editor Matt Jenkins, to support a reporting project over the next several months. Since 1969, the Fund has given out more than $1.5 million in grants to freelance reporters, book authors and small publications.

They say 'tis better to give than to receive, though. Which probably explains why Betsy Marston was glowing recently. The longtime Writers on the Range editor and author of our much-loved column "Heard around the West" is also on an advisory board to El Pomar, a Colorado foundation. Recently, she helped divert $45,000 of the foundation's money to a successful local program known as "Backpack," which is run by Delta County's school district. In its 16 years, Betsy says, Backpack has worked with thousands of families, providing books and games each month that get kids ready and eager for preschool and kindergarten.

WE'LL BRING THE FRUITED JELLOPotluck: Community on the Edge of Wilderness is the latest book from HCN contributor and author Ana Maria Spagna. Her volume of essays will be published in April by Oregon State University Press, which describes the book thus: "Potluck homes in on the everyday gatherings that, over time, define a community -- a makeshift wedding, an art gallery opening, a farewell potluck, a work party, a campfire, a political caucus, a funeral. Spagna doesn't shy away from what pushes people apart -- pettiness, prejudice, and idiosyncrasy -- and she marvels at what brings people together, and what holds them there." Sounds like wisdom that applies to every small Western town -- including HCN's home, Paonia, Colo.

CLARIFICATIONSIn our Feb. 7 story on President Obama's environmental policies in the West, we reported that the Environmental Protection Agency has strengthened air-quality standards that apply to coal plants for the first time in 40 years. We were referring to EPA's tighter rules for measuring sulfur dioxide, most of which is emitted by coal plants.

In our Feb. 21 profile of Jeff Rice ("The sound man") his hometown was listed as Salt Lake City; it should have been Seattle.

Our Feb. 21 story on "Alaska's abundance management" misinterpreted something Wade Willis, of the Science Now Project, said in an interview with our writer, Tracy Ross. Discussing how the Alaska Board of Game was considering an expansion of bear-snaring, Willis said that if it were permitted and opened to the general public, due to a lack of enforcement staff, that might make it easier for poachers to kill grizzly bears and/or trappers operating within the program to "kill bears and never report it." Willis did not say the Board of Game was considering allowing people to kill grizzlies without reporting it.